Noise pollution

An excuse is all it takes for people to create noise in Pune. It was the Ganesh festival, before which was Janmashtami and now its Navratri. So the celebration is for the devis but it ends up creating such a huge noise pollution that things are totally screwed up . This week they started playing songs all in the main throughfares of Pune causing huge traffic jams which resulted in me taking a 3 hour drive home on Thursday . Its faster to get to Bombay :).
Finally found the time today to get a large number of photos organized and put up online. Phew its such an exercise of patience. Anyways have to take some more good pics soon :) .

Gandhigiri and the story of sequels.

Across the pale parabola of joy

Morning it is on a lazy Tuesday. Have to get into work but am down again with a bug - not the software one but more the viral kinds. I managed to get to watch Lage Raho Munnabhai with the family on Sunday . This possibly is the first case where I have enjoyed the sequel better than the original. A nearly 3 hour movie and not once did I feel it dragging anywhere ! Really a good job. Arshad Warsi again takes the cake in this with what will be an immortal dialogue - 225 kidnapping kiye 260 logon ki haddiyaan todey lekin ek baar sorry bola aur andar kar diya mujhey.

The beauty of the movie for me was the way in which Gandhiji's ideals have been conveyed to the public in the typical tapori language of the average Joe in Bombay. The situations portrayed are all typical to what a lot of Indians face in their day to day existence, right from the son who loses his father's money in the stock market, to the old pensioner who needs to bribe a corrupt babu for getting a signature to receive a paltry pension from the state.The differentiation between the idol worship that we do for Gandhi by naming more areas, streets and setup statues of Gandhiji in every single park and the ideals of Gandhi are the things to be noted.

Thats possibly the reason that so many of us identify so closely with this movie. I am not convinced that Satyagraha will work always , maybe the process is more deterministic I don't know but it did work some 60 years back when we won our freedom. There are already stories in the newspapers of people starting clubs in Pune to follow Gandhigiri . Dadagiri is what usually works on the mean streets of India but maybe maybe after 58 years since Gandhiji was killed there's a chance that his ideals might again gain more relevance and credo among a generation of Indians which is become increasingly materialistic and thinks of his ideals as being irrelevant .

Best of luck to Mr.Kareer the municipal commissioner of Pune, who's the latest target of Gandhigiri with respect to the abysmal state of roads in Pune. To paraphrase the Times - "In India we drive on the left of the road, In Pune we drive on whats left of the road"

Pot Pourri`

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Bombay or Mumbai as it is called today is such a huge melting pot for all Indians. You can find people from all over India over here - the taxi drivers from UP / Bihar , the merchants from Gujarat ,the stock brokers from Maharashtra and the general white collar employee from Tamilnadu. This is the 4th weekend away from home, travelling all the time. 1 weekend in Pune followed by 1 in Chennai-Frankfurt-Vancouver,the next in Vancouver and now in Mumbai to meet the parents despite a fever and the horrendous jet lag. The next weekend will find me again in Mumbai and 2 weeks later I need to be in Madras for a wedding .This is serious travel :) . Interesting eh.

Anyways enough of the rant on travelling ,I must say that I enjoy it while I do it and watch all the different people travelling . The trip back from Vancouver last week was interesting in its own right. Vancouver to Frankfurt had a large number of European and North American folk with a number of people of origin in the orient and yours truly representing one of 2 people from the Indian subcontinent. I was seated in an inner seat with an Italian on one side and a German couple on the other side . Interesting people to travel with. The Italian could not believe that anyone could be such a
strong practising vegetarian that he didn't touch beef or bacon. He was extolling the way strangely in which airline beef was served and going into some graphic detail.

I tried listening patiently but after a point decided New York Nagaram , the latest AR Rehman hit was worth listening to in comparison to a discourse on the essence of being a non vegetarian.

Getting off at Frankfurt to take a connecting flight
lead me in a bus across an Air India air plane. Interested readers would note that I have a healthy disrespect for Air India, but that day I must say that I was quite glad to see something Indian and the sight of Air India actually made me happy for the first time.

Finally after the regular duty of buying duty free chocolates I made my way towards the departure gate for my flight back to Bombay. And look what do I find ... More Indians , more people trying to jump the line and making a total ass of themselves in the line on the plane.

But boy was I glad to see some more fellow Indians despite them behaving the only way we really can .

The reassuring sight of the Times of India before boarding the plane was worth it. If in India I don't give it more than a cursory glance but that day I was so starved of news that I read it cover to cover.

Hmmm music.

Across the pale parabola of joy

Other than the joys of dropping your new D50 the day after buying it and creating a nice big hole in it , stress testing the Nikon really works :) ...Played with the soft-float madness for ARM for sometime . Its really a bunch of crap really especially with 3.3.2 . Someone I knew wanted libc built with soft float and it turned out to be a mess worse than I expected.


Spent last nightwatching Jillendru oru kaathal .Interesting movie and some of the songs are rather good. New york Nagaram finally brings back the Rehman of old and his singing has come up leaps and bounds. Its about a guy singing about his loneliness in New York- please note : it seems to be whatever Bollywood can do Kollywood can too . Finally the hero ends up in New York ..

Hmmm interesting ..

A weekend that was and will be.

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A weekend that was amazing and that promises to be interesting .. Last Sunday M and Z managed to make me bike nearly 27 km all around Coquitlam. It was further from where I got to and I surprised myself by being able to bike that far.

Got some good shots on the old analog camera and will develop them some time. The next set of things I did this week is managing to acquire for myself a new Nikon D50 camera . The digital SLR is good , gets good photos and I can connect it to Ubuntu and it treats it like USB mass storage. Nothing I need to do . Transferred the photos and voila !

A weekend in Vancouver ...

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Finally the weekend arrives albeit 12 hours later than India. It feels odd to be in a place where you wake up when everyone back home is going to sleep or winding down for the day . Finally got used to the idea that it could be close to dusk and the time could be 6:20 a.m. on your notebook (well my notebook still runs on Indian time) :) . Everything is opposite to back home inclusive of the brakes on the bikes, the right brake is the back one and the left one is the front brake. Well everyone can say we in India are exactly opposite.

The first 2 days were spent in just recovering from jet lag and getting better from there on. The temperature is 25 in the day and 10 at night. Early mornings are so cold that if you are out of the house you can see frost coming out of your mouth ..

Managed to half bike and half walk all the way to a place called Rocky Point in a place called Port Moody . It took me nearly 2 hours and managed to exercise my camera finally and that works ! Long needed exercise with just a long walk and a bit of biking.

P.S. If the weekend starts 12 hours later it ends 12 hours later too ... Now thats a thought to bear :))

9500 metres above the sky..

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Sitting 9500 metres above the sky this is an interesting blog before the battery runs out in my notebook . Having utilized a larger amount of my battery time until now nothing much is left but to be left to the devices provided by Lufthansa for all sorts of entertainment :) . Ended up chatting with my cousin while up here in the sky which is good fun.

Achtung Bitte.

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Sitting in Fraport (Frankfurt airport) since sometime in the morning german time and catching up with email is quite interesting. The best part has been the ease with which trusty ol' zirakzigil works with Ubuntu Dapper to get the best access point , but paying so much money is kind of interesting. Anyways its in the credit card and we'll catch it sometime..... The thing that hits you is the change in language and despite the efforts to have announcements in English its funny to make out stuff which is written in Yes Prime Minister, (wok upztairzz , take ze train for zerminal B ) . I can now understand the sentiments of poor travellers who visit our country with its Tamil announcements down south, or Hindi announcements up north and the havoc differences in accents make... Was sorely tempted to buy an ipod but decided against it on grounds of fiscal soundness. :) .

So sitting down getting my laptop charged and will then end up boarding the aircraft in the next few minutes or so.

Out of hibernation...

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Its been quite crazy the past few weeks getting everything organized and the first weekend since I got posession of a brand new Wagon R . If you want to see it here it is on the Maruti site . The car is awesome despite Maruti and is a testimony to Suzuki's engineering successes ! Fitted it promptly with a Kenwood stereo and Blaupunkt speakers ... The resultant effect is quite worth every penny spent....

Parents are here and looking forward to a trip to Bombay sometime tomorrow. ! Its been good getting good South Indian breakfast and dinner, something that has been missing for quite some time.

If only....

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Well the title of this post is rather strange and it comes after a couple of interesting weeks in life. The highs of France reaching the finals, the lows of Zizou being red carded out in the finals ... The lows of not checking stuff before talking to a client and the highs of generating code that run at 184% the cycle count of an earlier release. The scare of 7 bombs in the city of dreams where your sister resides and being unable to reach her on phone ... Phew its been a roller coaster ride to say the least! Ok - now thats the understatement of my life :) .

Ended the week with a re-run of the classic movie You've got mail and realized the disruptive power of the internet. However though not everyone is a Joe F-o-x and you don't run into a Kathleen Kelly everyday though the mind boggles at such a possibility. What would any one do under such a situation ! What would I do ... And yes it all happens only in movies ! But then some of them are a true indicator of possibilities in real life aren't they !

Rain Rain come soon.

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The rains are here now in full swing. The Indian Meterological Department after a month of wrong predictions about the monsoon hitting on time has finally got it right by predicting bright sunny weather when it actually is grey , dark and totally dreary. The rains are here and have started washing away the top of every single decent road in Pune. Its good that yours truly has managed to sell his car and is on the verge of a new car. Well however second and third thoughts are peeking up about the purchase of a car at this point of time. Rumour has it that the PMC has commissioned more contractors to make sure that the work started by the rains is completed by huge telecom operators, contractors and the PMC itself. For those who don't know what the PMC is , its the Pune Municipal Corporation.

Sheer brilliance

Spent yesterday evening watching the Netherlands Ivory Coast match . Boy ! what a match it was. Total attacking football from both sides , though it was punctuated by quite a few ridiculous refereeing decisions during the match . There should have been a penalty given in favour of Ivory Coast, play acting by Bommel and Van de Saar should have not resulted in cards for Kone and Drogba . . Anyways that was that. Inspired by this bit of play yours truly decided to go play some basketball after nearly 4-5 months today . Got totally killed in the process. Metacarpal bones that I didn't know were present got exercised, a poor guy walked right into my 6 feet nearly 90 kilo frame (there I go giving my weight away ! ) and came away worse for the wear. He literally bounced off me , was funny to watch but not for the parties concerned in the incident.

Otherwise nothing noteworthy to note . Yet another weekend slideth in and is half way out .... ...

Goal !!!

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Its been quite a weekend . Punctuated with food , sleep and all the sporting events. The World Cup for soccer began on Friday and is one of the things that a lot of people have been looking forward to. The second test match between India and West Indies began in St. Lucia and Virender Sehwag's pyrotechnics made up for the lack of pyrotechnics yet in the World Cup . He made 99 of 75 balls and took 21 runs off a Dwayne Bravo over. Was too sleepy to watch Argentina take on Ivory Coast late last night though it was interesting to watch Beckham bend it and Carlos end it in the England - Paraguay match. Later Sweden couldn't overcome their opening match blues against minnows Trinidad and Tobago. Today was good as one watches Arjen Robben star in a Dutch win Serbia and Montenegro . 3 matches in a day would be too much of an overdose .

Back in the land of the monsoon

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Ah, its a relief to be back. One week is all that it takes for the weather to change from hot dry and extremely tiring to cool pleasant and windy . Yes folks the south west monsoon seems to be here, though it isn't raining that much yet here in Pune but the weather is very much better. It did rain in Madras on Saturday night but it was punctuated with a huge power cut that stretched the night.

Work is good, normal small fires doused with no real effort . Have a rough bug still to solve which should take up this week.

Vacation bluezzz

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Vacation and as usual I am in the city of the sweat. Attended a couple of weddings , a Tambrahm American Maapillai (son-in-law) engagement and then a week of R&R (rest , recuperation!) and clearing up the house which is getting a much needed coat of paint .

Attending the weddings was a bit of a nightmare with quite a few aged R's trying to get yours truly hitched up . It was easy to escape pointing fingers at my sis S and my cousin C . The high point of the wedding was being able to play with my 4 month old nephew A and his twin sister A , yeah they are both A's and getting my shirts chewed off in the process. The other nice part was meeting up with all cousins some old and well known and the others new and met for the first time. It was quite interesting to meet a 70 year old lady who claimed to be my cousin. We are one huge happy Tambrahm family paraphrasing Tom Hanks in You've got mail .

The other few days were spent in visiting a Tahsildar's office for handling some red tape, clearing off old books and getting rid of as many of my old books as possible and looking at old correspondence with the aged R's . I have actually spent a week with minimum interference on the wide wide internet and not responding to many official emails !Now thats an achievement !!

Saar coolie

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The weekend was spent in travelling down to Bombay yet again and acting as a porter and a driver for my sis ! Acted like a responsible elder brother for once and surprised the aged R located down south in Madras. Returned to Pune later in the evening. These day trips are getting interesting and I am figuring out stuff about my Zen and handling it is improving. Its doing good by giving me 19 to a litre and allowing me to travel from Kothrud to Kurla in 2:15 min. Not bad at all I'd say . Ofcourse there are certain well-wishers who'd flay me alive for driving like that including a certain reader who's a regular off RSS feeds from this blog.

Of Catalan Devils and the Gunners

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Sitting at home and being able to finish off quite a few issues with work and then to be able to sit back and relax at home in a dark room listening to Floyd was one of the cheap thrills in life . Was up late last night hacking on the monster that the GNU tools are and having fun at that and watching Barcelona come up trumps against Arsenal. Was a pity that Thierry Henri could not finish off the catalan devils but with Arsenal leading 1-0 at half time i thought half the battle was won. It was remarkable the way Barca came back to trump the Gunners from London. Now looking forward to the big thing , the event of this year would be the World Cup which is just around the corner. Parts of Pune don't have ESPN because of issues between the cable operators and ESPN in terms of license fees . My cable subscriber does though provide ESPN so its alright to now look forward to an invasion from friends who can't get to see ESPN in their areas.

Life though is good otherwise but sitting alone at home is slowly losing its charm , and being a compiler geek enables your social life to be a total zero with the result that friends you thought were bosom buddies think that you no longer exist !

A walk on the hills.

It was a good day today. Spent a lot of time in working on some estimates for a project and finished them just a few minutes back. Spent 2 hours in the day meeting up with a friend and later in the evening met a gaggle of friends from my college days.It was good fun especially walking up and down the hill behind Fergie and sitting and catching up on old times. I hadn't done this in the past 6 years so it was worth the climb and must have cost me a few cms off my waistline. .. But it was not to be a peaceful ending. I discovered that I need to drive down later during the day whenever I get some much wanted sleep to Bombay to help Shark figure out some new places. So rough day , week month ahead. Now I start counting days off for my vacation :) . Its now 13 days away . Yahoo.. But as with all vacations, I know I am going to end up writing proposals for projects. :P

Telugu and Gulute

Why are Gults called Gults ?

I have asked so many people this and the most popular answer according to us Tambrahms is that gult is a derivative from the word gulute which is the reverse of the syllables from the word te-lu-gu . I have heard an extension of this which might be rude to all the gults who read this and a good friend of mine, whose name is that of a calculator will murder me for this.

Apparently in the Rayalaseema district the rural folk keep a tokri full of puli rice and gongura (one of *the* hottest pickles that this country has the honour of producing and someting that all gults need to catch up on when they are back in homeland ) which they get up and have first thing in the morning without doing anything else. The next thing they do is to take a shower , walk out on the road , finish your work and on the way use either a twig or a toothpaste to brush. So the day's 3 major tasks are done in the wrong order hence the word te-lu-gu is reversed as gu-lu-te and gult is a short form for that.


I should mention here that this is hearsay and could very well be a tamilians rant against our fellow Indians slightly north of t-nadu.

Of Right Hands and Left Toe Nails

Whats the relation between the right hand and the left toe nail ? Other than using it to clean the dirt or remove the toe nail , there isn't much relation right ? With the result that the right hand and left toe nail don't communicate and end up not knowing each others capabilities.


Its a thing that you expect with bureaucracies as eulogised in the immortal Yes Prime Minister. A minister in the EU had a portfolio to pay French farmers to grow excess wheat, while a German minister in the next building paid German farmers to destroy excess wheat. A story that repeats itself in today's software world time and time again . The moral is the same, the context is different. Its no longer wheat, its u "boot".